The Difference
by Artistard3
Summary: One shot: Sometimes Maya has doubts about her friendship with Riley Matthews. Maya always finds herself comparing herself to Riley and her family.


**One shot: Riley and Maya**

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 **P.s. This is the first time I've written a Girl Meets World fanfic. I hope you all like it. (:**

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Sometimes Maya had doubts about her friendship with Riley Matthews. That girl was rainbows and sunshine and puppies and bunnies and 8 o'clock curfews and Cory and Topanga Matthews. Maya was the storm and the rain and dragons and dungeons of sadness and no curfews and Katy Hart and Gammy Hart and Kermit, the father (who she refuses to call 'dad' who left both of them for another family.

And they both knew that the difference between them was that Riley was full of hope.

That girl's bright smiles held enough hope for the both of them. Also, Riley hadn't been out in the real world. She was as sweet as pie, but she was so wrapped up in her world of happiness, she missed some of things Maya had known about since age seven.

Riley never noticed the homeless people living in the subway station or the drug deals that took place in the dark alley next to Maya's apartment. Riley never acknowledged the fact that violence existed, and Riley was never given a talk from her mother at age eight about always holding her house key straight in front of her as she walked home at night in case anyone tried to sexually assault her.

Riley was naive, as were most middle schoolers. But Maya spent a lot of time listening. That's where she learned everything she knew.

Maya lived in a small apartment downtown, one Riley used to be afraid of. To Maya, the apartment was okay, but it was nothing like the Matthew's.

The Matthews had an apartment full of bright colors, professionally photographed family pictures on the fireplace, bay windows, and large pieces of artwork that decorated the walls. It was nice and big, with two bathrooms and a fire escape.

In Maya's apartment, there was chipped paint on the brick wall, her furniture was from Good Will, she used the water pipes as a bookshelf, her pink and white rug was a little rough against her toes unlike Riley's soft purple and green carpet, her curtain was a piece of cloth her mom had picked up from Walmart, and all of her clothes were hand-me-downs from her cousin Anna, who went to college in Maryland. Her artwork covered one side of her bedroom, the lights barely worked and her window wouldn't completely shut and the loud sound of the city was what she fell asleep to every night, but it was home. She liked the quietness of her bedroom, she liked the way she could climb out her window and onto the roof because then she could see the stars and the reflection of the strip of buildings across the street, the eerily beautiful set of apartment buildings and the pet shop which she loved to draw.

The Matthews always sat down together at meals to talk about their day; the Harts communicated through sticky notes on takeout boxes, since her mom was always gone from the apartment, working at the diner by the time Maya got up for school.

The people in Maya's apartment building were different than the ones in Riley's. Riley's was full of nuclear, fairy-tale families, ones like the Matthews. With a mother and a father and a couple of bright, well-educated, non-problematic children.

Maya's apartment building was full of people who had grown up like Maya: broken. The apartment building Maya lived in was not that large. She knew almost all of their stories. She knew that the girl on the third floor had had an abusive boyfriend who she was running away from. And the sweet lady that lived next door had been a widower for more than forty years. And the couple on the first floor who had dropped out of college because the girl had gotten pregnant and gotten a back alley abortion and died in the process, leaving the heartbroken boy alone, drinking away his pain, trying to forget everything. And the guy across the hall had a serious cocaine addiction that he had been trying to get over since Maya was nine. And the family on the floor below them had two little girls, ages seven and eleven, whose mom had left them and whose dad was barely home, because he was always out drunk.

At school, Maya knew she had a pretty bad life compared to her peers. Her father had left her for another family. She had grown up with out a father, having to watch her mother cry herself to sleep sometimes, having to be strong for her mom who was trying so hard to be the best mother she could be. But Maya's life was nothing compared to the people she knew. It wasn't liked her mother didn't love her: that was the difference. Maya's mom loved her so much, and she tried so hard to provide for her. Maya was really thankful for her mom. She wasn't as successful as Mr. or Mrs Matthews, but she tried. And that was all that mattered to Maya.

Maya liked her life. It wasn't perfect, but honestly, nobody's life was perfect: not even Riley's.


End file.
